The Government's Watch List As the Chronicle of Higher Education reports, the House of Representatives has just voted to compile a list of colleges and universities which ban military recruiting.

There's only one possible reason for such a list: to intimidate those institutions. It's a prelude to cutting off whatever federal funding they may receive, should the Supreme Court rule that the government has the right to do so.

Republicans used to consider themselves the party of small government, even though that identity started to shift around 1994, when the GOP took control of the House. In the realm of education, it's remarkable just how much the Republican Party is using federal power to try to shape the content and diminish the autonomy of institutions of higher learning. Surely this would be an issue that the Harvard president should address? It doesn't have to be an attack on the GOP; picking such a fight wouldn't make much sense. But how about a ringing affirmation of the independence of the university from outside pressures?  ¶ 8:25 AM